Chalk protester freed after charges dropped

Timothy Osmar talks with the media after being released from… (Tom Burton, Orlando Sentinel )

January 11, 2012|By Mark Schlueb, Orlando Sentinel

Timothy Osmar wasted no time in returning to the scene of the crime.

The 25-year-old Occupy Orlando demonstrator spent 18 days in the Orange County Jail after police arrested him for using pink chalk to write protest slogans on the sidewalk outside City Hall. He was released Wednesday only after the city prosecutor dropped the charges.

But within hours, Osmar was back at City Hall, writing messages on the sidewalk about freedom and revolution. Then he went to the Orange County Courthouse and did the same thing.

"I am ready and willing, after a bit of a breather, to do it all again," Osmar said shortly after his release. "I would really look forward to challenging this in court, to striking the ordinance so people can express themselves with chalk on the sidewalk."

Osmar said he only stopped this time because he ran out of chalk. There were no police around, and he wasn't arrested.

But next time, he could be. Though city officials dropped the charges, City Attorney Mayanne Downs said that was because they felt Osmar had spent enough time in jail. Anyone who "defaces" the sidewalk or other property, even with chalk, still could be arrested, she said.

"They're certainly at risk of being arrested," Downs said. "I hope people don't do that — there are better ways to protest. Why not hold a sign? But we have to apply our ordinances in as consistent a way as possible."

"This was a guy who wanted to be arrested, by all accounts, and has been," Dyer said. "This guy was given every opportunity not to go to jail, but he chose to go to jail."

Osmar was charged with violating a city ordinance prohibiting "writing or painting advertising matter on streets or sidewalks." Among other things, Osmar had written, "This is not graffiti. It's democracy."

He was arrested Dec. 15 as he began to write "the revolution will not be televised" in chalk after police warned him to stop. After being released on bond, he returned to City Hall on Dec. 22 and wrote again: "All I want for Christmas is a revolution."

Osmar was arrested again, and this time he was held without bond.

The charges were dropped just a day after attorney Dick Wilson, who took Osmar's case for free, entered a "not guilty" plea on his client's behalf.

Wilson said the arrests were a clear violation of Osmar's First Amendment rights.

"I am thrilled the crime rate in Orlando is so low the city of Orlando has time to imprison people for drawing on the sidewalk in chalk," said Wilson, former national chairman of the First Amendment Lawyers Association.

The arrest has been criticized in the news media and by some attorneys.

But a police report shows that officers contacted the department's legal adviser and were told that an arrest for writing on the sidewalk with chalk was lawful.

Osmar said he'd like to convince police not to arrest people for using chalk as a tool for political expression.

"It's something that I feel, and that a lot of rational people think, is our right as citizens," he said. "I still believe I did the right thing. I'm OK with being arrested again."